


Not of One Skin

by Vulgarweed



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Cannibalism, Disturbing Content, Gen, OC Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-26
Updated: 2010-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-08 08:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulgarweed/pseuds/Vulgarweed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A grandfather, a grandson, and a full moon: young Fenrir Greyback comes into a family legacy the hard way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not of One Skin

_"Come, come, sit by the fire," said Grandfather, lighting his pipe with a snap of his fingers, flicking a little stray ash out of his grey whiskers. That was always the cue for the children to gather, excitedly, positioned comfortably about his feet and his knees. Grandfather was from a faraway country (well, not nearly so far as it had seemed to a little one) and his stories were the best._

_"Tell the one about the girl who turned into a swan," begged Ingrid._

_"No, no, tell the one about the lad who turned into a bear in battle," begged Bjorn, who probably liked that one best because the hero had his name._

_Fenrir waited patiently until his favourite tale, the one about the hunter and the wolf, came around again. It always would, sooner or later._

 

The idea of dying at St. Mungo's horrified the old man, Fenrir could see it in his darting eyes, still keen and alert within the stiff, failing body. In his prime, Grandfather had been a shipbuilder and a sailor, a soldier and a lover, a hunter and a spy, and that all just in the one shape he had most of the time. Though his daughter wrung her hands and sighed and tried with all her reasoning and all her pleading to persuade him to go, the old wizard for whom Fenrir was named stayed adamant, slightly growling.

The young boy overheard his parents talking one night.

"Do you think it's because of his…? I mean, he's kept it hidden all these years, think of the indignity of…the registry and all that, now that they'll find out when he…"

"I think it's because Dad is so bloody stubborn. Simple as that."

"It's because I don't want to die like a fucking helpless lump of rot-meat with tubes stuck up my veins and prissy doctors waving wands over me and some starched-up little nurse holding my wang while I pizzle, that's what!" roared the old man, who'd heard everything with his too-keen ears.

Fenrir the Younger laughed quietly. Oh, he knew whose side he was on now. He imagined Grandfather probably did too.

Sure enough, one evening he was roused from his reading outside on the lawn by his grandfather's withered hand gently shaking his shoulder. The old man was bent over his walking stick, slightly trembling, but his eyes were alight and golden. "You want to know something more about those old tales, boy?" he croaked, with some wild affection.

"S-sure," said Fenrir, feeling as if he had something with wings caught in his throat.

"Well, come on then," said Grandfather, digging his fingers into the boy's arm. And Fenrir felt a wrenching sensation in his belly as the house and yard whirled away.

They stood in a forest, the air rich with the damp green smells of pine and moss and cold. Twilight brought out the yellow in the old man's eyes, matching the shimmer at the base of the darkling clouds to the east

"There won't be any turning back after this," Grandfather Fenrir said, pacing the little hill and thrumming his walking stick against the lichen-covered stones for emphasis. "There's barely any now. But I always knew you were special, boy. Not that your mother isn't a power in her own right, but sometimes it skips a generation and she just doesn't have the heart for the gift. Not the right temperament. You can tell. I can tell about you too."

Fenrir thought for a moment about pretending he didn't know what the old man was talking about. He realised just in time how insulting that would be to both of them.

"I'm going to ask you if you're sure," said Grandfather, looking into Fenrir's eyes with a steady, ancient gaze. "And you better be ready to tell me the truth. It's not an easy road. It's a path with no friends. It's being hungry all the time. It's a lot of pain, it's a lot of hate, and it's all those bloody do-gooder Ministry wizards wanting to put you on a list and make a _tame_ dog out of you. Don't ever let them. Don't _ever_ let them make you ashamed."

"I won't," Fenrir promised, shaking like a leaf.

"And whatever you do, don't run from me now because if you turn and run, you will become _prey_ in my eyes. You have to be very brave if you want to get the power and survive, and not many do. Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm…sure," said Fenrir. It wasn't easy to get the words out with his lips trembling as they were, but he hated that weakness in his nerves making him sound so false and childish, because in his heart he _was_ sure.

The old man glanced around at the darkening wood and above at the brightening sky. "Remember this – If you remember who I am and who you are and hold fast and defend yourself, it'll be all right. But if you panic, you'll die — and I daresay you'll deserve it too, for being too full of big talk."

Fenrir swallowed hard, and stood only slightly swaying as the first curve of the full moon broke the horizon open, and his grandfather screamed with a force he didn't seem to have left in his lungs. The boy thought for a moment Fenrir the Elder was dying right there in front of him and in great pain at that, and where were they, anyway, and how would he explain…?

But his grandfather wasn't dying, he was changing. The boy watched in horrible fascination, bile rising into his throat, his feet begging to run and still seeming nailed fast to the ground as the creature before him took more distinct shape – long-nosed and slant-eyed and pert-eared and furry, with a proud scruff and silver mantle grizzling fur that had once been almost black.

His grandfather gazed up at the moon once, sniffed the air, and then turned on the frozen boy. Fenrir the Younger yelped just once a little thinly, and yet stood absolutely still, facing his grandfather down.

He was very proud that he did not scream or cry when those dagger-like fangs pierced his shin, nor when the werewolf threw him to the ground and sniffed at his throat. He fought for his life like he'd been told by the old tales, and though he was covered in bites on his limbs and soaked through with his own blood, his faith that his beloved grandfather would not kill him was eventually rewarded when morning found them entwined, the young man's head resting on the old one's hip, wounds healing into scars. (Grandfather was an old wolf, after all. Perhaps not quite so strong or so quick or so bloodthirsty as he'd once been. Not that the boy would ever say that to his face.)

 

For the next month, young Fenrir felt closer to his grandfather than he'd ever been. The knowing glances had real meaning now, and it seemed every chance he got the old man would lean in and impart some bit of vital, odd wisdom: pack relations, dominance, hunting, culling. Pride.

That was why it hurt so much when Fenrir's mother betrayed them at the end. It happened when Grandfather fell down the stairs and whined piteously for just a moment before stiffly pulling himself up and denying that he was injured, despite all evidence to the contrary.

When the social worker from the Ministry came, Grandfather held the boy's arm in a gnarled grip like iron. Though they weren't supposed to be able to hear, of course they could, and when the witch in the taut, professional robes start talking seriously with the old wolf's daughter about "the safety of the children," they both knew how deep the betrayal went.

Without a word, young Fenrir let himself be Apparated away to the wild.

For two days they camped, and they hunted with wands in the regular way, and by the fire Grandfather told every story he knew, including at last the ones he'd deemed unfit for children, but Fenrir was now no child: the bawdy and the bloody and the ones where everyone who claimed to know the right and proper ways of the world were wrong, wrong, wrong, and the ones where the children who didn't survive were ultimately done a kindness in the long run, for the world would test them harder and break them more slowly and cruelly if they proved ultimately unfit.

They were two of the happiest days of young Fenrir's life, and he knew they would have to come to an end. The end would come with a perfectly round yellow-white eye in the sky, shining down, calling a son home.

One son of the moon would go home tonight. That was the way of the werewolf.

They fought with understanding, they fought with love, and they fought with a sincere hunger for each other's taste, spilling blood freely across the mossy earth. But one was young and strong and the other was brittle and tired, and Fenrir the Younger found himself feigning to save the old werewolf's pride a little before he died — exactly the way he wanted, quickly and with honour. The old wolf's windpipe was delicious and crunchy, and his life's blood was rich and hot, and the look in the yellow eyes was gratitude and approval amid only a mild spicing of pain and fear. Fenrir ate as much of the old wolf as he could, and awoke in the morning naked and part-wrapped in wolfskin.

When he returned, his parents were in custody, his little brother and sister taken away by the Ministry.

Was he supposed to be fucking _ashamed?_

 

~fin~


End file.
